


rare and sweet, veraison treat

by hwatothestars



Category: ATEEZ (Band)
Genre: Barebacking, Creampie, Dirty Talk, Exhibitionism, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-02
Updated: 2021-01-02
Packaged: 2021-03-12 01:13:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28502028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hwatothestars/pseuds/hwatothestars
Summary: Park Seonghwa is twenty-two, a literature student, rich with a capital R and head-spinning gorgeous. These are the facts. What they integrate to translate to: he, in conjunction with his ego, takes residence in a sky castle. If lofty were a person, they’d walk, talk, dress, breathe like Park Seonghwa. They’d even fucking meditate. Like Park Seonghwa. At noon in 25°C+ weather.In all his years, Hongjoong's never met anyone whose lungs he'd love to fill with crystal chlorinated water like he does this guy.In which Hongjoong is a pool boy and Seonghwa's hot but stuck up. (Not really.)
Relationships: Kim Hongjoong/Park Seonghwa
Comments: 11
Kudos: 202





	rare and sweet, veraison treat

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cosmicwoosan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmicwoosan/gifts).



> Hi hi, please forgive my tardiness dear Santee, and thank you for your patience. It's certainly not a Christmas gift but it can serve as a New Year's one! Happy New Year, btw!! I hope this wee thing is to your liking ♡

July bears down like forceps on the skull, a prying, god-like heat that demands bearing. The water that sloshes around Hongjoong's chest is worse than it could be boiling. It's lukewarm, like cooling dredged-up bathwater. The net, a mercy for his ache-pricked arms, drags along with relative ease. 

"Seonghwa-yah!" A set of ruby stilettos click onto the rockstone pearl tiles and the wide ends of flared trousers come level with Hongjoong's line of vision. "I'm heading out now, darling. Do you need anything?" 

"I'm okay, eomma. Give eemo my greetings and kiss Hyejinnie for me."

The sweetness could clog up a toilet. 

Mrs. Park nods. Her fond gaze cuts to Hongjoong. "Make sure to take a break, you hear me? Seonghwa will report to me!" Her eyes twinkle with the threat, a familiar-unfamiliar face, "You know where the refreshments are. See you next week, Hongjoong-ah."

"Don't worry about me please," Hongjoong says brightly, bowing. Mrs. Park wags a finger at him as she walks away, chuckling. 

Hongjoong's shoulders drop. Avoiding the barest acknowledgement of the loungers area, he returns, a little miserably, to trawling the pool surface. 

Pool keeping isn't a walk in the pool. There are a hundred steps of manual labour, a precipice of chemicals to toe, as well as the the zenith of summer to contend with. The afternoons get on their knees and crawl, the season is incessant. Hongjoong works four afternoons a week, two pools a day and the agency always manages to strong arm him into a spontaneous shift at least once a week. 

Some pools are more heinous than others, in terms of filth, in terms of size, in terms of clients. But this is Hongjoong's fifth season on this job. He's been working it since he was seventeen. He's well versed in the navigation of it, flying by the seat of his pants for contingencies that aren’t covered in training, placating entitled, overbearing, sometimes inappropriate, clients so the agency rating stays up. It's why he is yet to be laid off in this high turnover service. 

And in all his years, he's never met anyone whose lungs he'd love to fill with crystal chlorinated water like he does Park Seonghwa.

Park Seonghwa is twenty-two, a literature student, rich with a capital R and head-spinning gorgeous. These are the facts. What they integrate to translate to: he, in conjunction with his ego, takes residence in a sky castle. If lofty were a person, they’d walk, talk, dress, breathe like Park Seonghwa. They’d even fucking meditate. Like Park Seonghwa. At noon in 25°C+ weather.

In Hongjoong’s ample experience, wealthy and deluded are often interchangeable. Exhibit Z, part xxix: Park Seonghwa. 

It’s been a month since he’s started at the Park Residence and in these handful of visits, Hongjoong has come closer to quitting than the time a client made him enter a pool infested with dog faeces (‘potty training’). He was seventeen then and far more hot blooded than he is now. But at the end of the day, hard work, distasteful and dehumanising as it can be, isn’t something that deters him. 

Being condescended to, by someone who isn’t remotely qualified in what they’re speaking on, is a great nudge towards the volcano of apoplexy. And Seonghwa has barely been short of bulldozing. 

_I’m so sorry to ask, really I am, but would you mind being a bit more thorough with the vacuuming?_

_Hongjoong, is the skimmer system broken? I believe it’s actually vomiting rubbish. (Rubbish?!)_

_Could you tell me how long you circulated the water this time?_

_(Sternly) Are you sure the AquaChek works? My skin reacted when I entered the water last week. See here on my shoulders? It’s a rash. Do you mind checking the pH a few more times?_

_Hongjoong, did you take a look at the walls? I think I saw algae on the steps._

On the steps!

As if it algae could survive on there, in clear view of the sun, in spite of the immaculate chemical (and non chemical) condition Hongjoong keeps the pool in every week, as _if._ It’s an affront. His entire existence is an assault on Hongjoong’s dignity; idling on the lounger every afternoon in his pale jumbo shortsleeves, his barely there shorts and miles of butterscotch skin, sporting a book or another like it’s a piercing or ring, peering over the rims of Dior shades whenever he means to reprimand Hongjoong in his sonorous soft-spoken ‘suggestions’. 

Seonghwa is lucky Mrs. Park, the client who actually matters—Hongjoong’s mantra—is a seraph and a sweetheart. You could catch your reflection from the glow of the weekly reviews she leaves for Hongjoong, she tips obscenely well and insists on making Hongjoong feel like a guest while he’s around, instead of the worker that he is. Hell, she told him to call her eomoni the first week. If she had her way, Hongjoong would be dining with them every week. But that’s commitment even a 50% tip can’t compensate. 

How does a person like Mrs. Park end up with a monstrosity like Seonghwa? Where in his genes or nurture do his nagging, patronising, insufferable traits steal in from? 

Summer’s denouement has never been more welcome. 

** 

“Whatchya up to?” 

The glass slips from Hongjoong’s grasp and pivots on the marble top in an echoey clatter before stilling upright. Hongjoong’s heart is racing. Wooyoung’s chin is at his shoulder, his face that unsettlingly close. His breath tickles Hongjoong’s ear canal when he speaks, his overheated body contributing to the furthered overheating of Hongjoong’s overheated body. He faces out the patio doors, the same direction Hongjoong was transfixed for the previous three minutes, one hand hovering in a fist by his side, the other moulded to the pitcher handle. 

That’s the other thing about Park Seonghwa. His annoying fucking friends. Ideally, the pool area would be vacant when Hongjoong is doing his thing. Smoother process for everyone involved. After a pristine, laconic _I’m just sitting? You won’t hear a sound_ (false), it was evident from the first time that Seonghwa was more a territorial feline than a reasonable human. What could Hongjoong do about it? Throw a tantrum to Mrs. Park? Hardly. 

Here’s where things decline worse: whenever Wooyoung and Yeosang decide the only day they should epoxy themselves to Seonghwa is Pool Day—Seonghwa who never leaves the pool on Pool fucking Day. 

Worse, when they take up three loungers in a row and take turns slathering sunscreen onto each other then snore loudly in the soporific sun like satiated cats. Worse, when they watch Hongjoong from their mighty lounger throne, ooh ahing at the inner workings of pool keeping, like Hongjoong is an outlandish spectacle come to their oh so woeful ennui stricken lives, or when they crowd up the poolsides with their belongings and games and take up room for the equipment Hongjoong needs within arms reach for convenience. 

Hongjoong doesn’t say anything to Seonghwa, what would be the point? But he does speak in plenty scowling and frowning and sighing and _exuding_ to indicate their presence is cumbersome. As of yet, they haven’t grasped it. Rich, deluded, interchangeable. 

“Do you need something?” Hongjoong says, dull. He takes his cup and pitcher of iced _maesil-cha_ as he shuffles aside, putting much needed breathing room between him and Wooyoung. 

“I was just going to ask you,” Wooyoung says, repasting himself to Hongjoong’s side, completely undettered. “Want me to get that for you?” 

“What? No, I’m fine,” Hongjoong huffs, ripping his gaze from the patio doors and pouring himself a drink at last. Wooyoung, for whatever unfathomable reason, or perhaps not so unfathomable, _annoying_ is perfectly fathomable, snatches the cup and throws it back like it’s a shot, long gulps resounding. Personal space, basic decency, martians to this environment. 

The heat is vicious today and despite his best efforts Hongjoong can feel his skin start to tender with the starts of a sunburn. He’s also battling the detritus of a hangover from last night’s events (thank you, Yunho, you will be dealt with), and all around out of fucks to even offer the most minimal of rebukes to Wooyoung. At this point his best strategy is camouflage. Maybe if he melts into the very atoms of the air and refuses to acknowledge that either of them are beings of grey matter and functional larynx, Wooyoung will start to wither from attention deficiency and leave Hongjoong be. Resolute, he lifts his gaze and stares pointedly without comment for his stolen drink as it’s chugged down. 

A small irritated sound escapes his throat when he sees Seonghwa’s wide brimmed hat and Yeosang’s watermelon floater drifting in the pool. He still has to check and adjust the chemicals, he _asked_ them to keep out for the duration of his work, how hard is a simple instruction to follow?

Speaking of the culprits, they seem to have disa… oh. Seonghwa’s lounger is close to the ground, lowered to flat and Yeosang straddles his shirtless back. There’s a lotion bottle next to them and Yeosang’s fingers gently excavate knots between Seonghwa’s shoulder blades, lips caught in his teeth with concentration and care. Seonghwa’s head lies pillowed at an angle in the crook of his folded arms, face contorted in lines of relief and languor, cherry mouth slightly parted in silent sighs. They make a pretty scene for a pool catalogue. Or a cheap porno. 

“Your boyfriend got a boyfriend?” The question shoots out before Hongjoong can stop it.

Wooyoung stops drinking. 

His eyes follow Hongjoong’s stare. 

“Why do you ask?” 

“No reason,” there’s static trapped in the space between Hongjoong’s skin and bones, a heedless buzzing that, from experience Hongjoong knows, won’t be sated til’ he’s settled whatever birthed its onslaught. Curiosity? It must be. “They seem close.” 

“They are,” Wooyoung shrugs, “we all are. Grown up together.” 

“You know Seonghwa well,” it’s more a statement than a question. Curiosity, a hard thing to uproot once it takes. 

“Sure,” Wooyoung says, releasing Hongjoong’s hostage cup at last. Hongjoong takes it and marches to the sink to rinse. There’s nothing stopping him from a new cup, but the inexplicable jitters have spread to his fingertips and there’s the compulsion to be in motion, to do, to move, to occupy. 

“So what’s his deal?” Hongjoong says in, what he hopes is, an uninvested, mindless tone. 

“His deal?” Wooyoung sprawls across the island top and presses a cheek to the cool Calcatta marble. 

“Yeah. Why’s he… why’s that stick up his ass? On pool keeping of all things. He can’t care that much, right?” 

“So what are you saying?” He sounds unintrigued, bored almost. 

“Who said I’m saying anything?”

“No one… but sounds to me you think he’s got a thing against you.” 

Hongjoong shrugs this time. “I’m just saying he’s a brat and if he can’t bear me he should get me fired. Not whatever… whatever passive aggressive shit he’s pulling.” 

And maybe Hongjoong has gone too far, said too much, surely Wooyoung will blabber, but at this rate a confrontation is preferable. 

Wooyoung suddenly lifts himself from the counter, as if by puppet strings, “I’ll tell you one thing for free, hyung,” his eyes are alive unlike a few seconds ago, a brightness in them that feels hazardous, like he has Hongjoong where he wanted him. 

“When Seonghwa hyung hates something or someone,” Wooyoung starts, closing in on Hongjoong, “his tactic is Total Avoidance. He treats them like an epidemic. He doesn’t believe on expending any energy on things that irritate him. He’s detailed but selective with his attention.” 

“What,” Hongjoong says, exasperated with this tongue-speak, throwing his hands up, “does that have to do with this? What is his deal with me?”

“Ah ah hyung,” Wooyoung says, squeezing Hongjoong’s shoulder, “I said I would tell you _one_ thing for free. Any additional enlightenment from the Seonghwa Oracle will cost you.”

“Forget it,” Hongjoong sighs and picks up his dewy cup of _maesil-cha_ at last, “you’re useless.” 

_And I don’t care,_ he thinks. Curiosity can ouroboros itself. 

**

The following week the Park Residence is uncharacteristically still. No Mrs. Park lounging in the living, no Seolhwa with her friends gathered in the dining, no Yeosang and Wooyoung making a nuisance in the back. Hongjoong finds Seonghwa alone, drifting in the centre of the pool on a long palm printed float, face concealed by his wide brimmed hat, a sherry glass resting between his index and pointer, arm lazily outstretched and bobbing in the water. 

“Oh Hongjoong,” he says when Hongjoong setting his equipment down alerts him to his presence, “you’re here.” 

Hongjoong narrowly holds his snort. “Surprise?” 

“What are you doing here?” 

“Really Seonghwa?” he sighs. Ignoring whatever undecipherable foolishness Seonghwa’s embarked on this time, he turns to fetch the rest of his equipment from the van. 

“You didn’t get informed? Eomoni called the company,” there’s a frown in his voice. 

Hongjoong goes rigid. _Eomoni called the company._ He’d fantasized of this day, when by either termination or end of season he could walk out of the Park Residence for the last time but… so soon? Fired? For the first time in his poolboy career? And, and, and so _soon?_ Somehow it doesn’t make him as exuberant he’d imagined. In fact, there are boulders rotating in his stomach and sandpaper where his tongue should be. 

“What?” 

Seonghwa tips up his wide brimmed hat and lowers his shades, there’s a small furrow between his brows, “We had today’s session moved back to tomorrow. I have a small thing today and the pool hasn’t been used much this week anyway.” 

“Oh,” Hongjoong says, sounding breathless, as time lets itself down from the chains of suspension, “it’s _postponed?”_

“Yes,”

“I’m not fired?”

“Fired?” Seonghwa’s frown deepens, he removes his shades completely. “Why would you be fired?” 

Hongjoong hates how the relief almost makes him sag. 

“Never mind. Well— see you tomorrow, then.” He pivots to leave.

“Hongjoong wait!” There’s a _splash splash splash_ as Seonghwa eases from his float and wades towards the edge of the pool, “Wait,” 

He stands before Hongjoong dripping, bronzed skin glistening. “I think I owe you an apology.”

It’s Hongjoong’s turn to frown. “An apology?” 

Seonghwa squirms a little, fingers fidgeting with the edge of his hat, speech-struggle plain on his face. It’s a surprising sight, to see the High Seonghwa ruffled before him, but he can’t say he hates it. 

“I spoke with Wooyoung last week,” he says, flushed, “and it seems I’ve left an impression on you.” 

Ah, there it is. Bad mannered, big mouthed, predictable Wooyoung. Hongjoong is appalled by the smile that threatens to break out on his face. Perhaps he isn’t a complete nuisance, though. Hongjoong will have to reexamine his divulgences later.

“A bad one at that, but it was not my intention.”

There’s no end to these surprises today. “It wasn’t?”

“No,” he exclaims, stepping closer, finding a window to make his case for exoneration, “not at all. I didn’t realize how it came across to you. I didn’t mean to meddle in your job and make things unpleasant for you. I just wanted... anyway, I'm sorry.” 

It’s one thing to witness Seonghwa humbled, another to see clear consternation on Hongjoong’s behalf. He finds himself stammering quickly, “Apology accepted?”

“Really?” Seonghwa beams. The first non tight lipped, non stilted, non contrived smile he’s ever aimed at Hongjoong, all perfect teeth and lush lips and it lands a pyrotechnic strike in the centre of Hongjoong’s ribcage. 

“Yeah, sure.”

“Oh,” he says wondrously, “I thought this was going to go so differently.”

Hongjoong wants to hear an elaboration, but his insides feel so funny and he needs time to figure it out, perhaps out of the sun, away from Seonghwa who apparently _blushes_ , who smiles pretty at Hongjoong, who apparently cares how his actions affect Hongjoong. “I’ll get going,”

“Wait,” 

“Do you want to stay? To, uhm, hang out,” 

Shy. A new one to the slew of new Seonghwa things. Apparently he does that. Get shy. With Hongjoong. 

“Like, with you?”

“Yes,”

“Here?”

“Yes, and later I’m having a small pool party. If you want, you can- you can stay for that, too,” 

There’s real (surprising) regret when Hongjoong says, “I— I don’t know. You’re a client, you know?” 

“So take this off,” Seonghwa says quickly, nodding at Hongjoong’s turquoise uniform polo emblazoned with the agency logo, “take this off and there! You’re not working anymore. We’ll be friends. They don’t have a policy against that do they?”

“Friends?” Hongjoong turns the word over in his mouth. It rattles, like corn seeds under closed heat. 

“Why not. We’re the same age. And we don’t hate each other.” 

It’s time to give Seonghwa a smile of his own. “Well…”

“Oh?” 

“I haven’t decided yet.” He says, solemn. 

“Then stay and gather some experiment material.” Seonghwa stops fidgeting. His head tilts, expression caught in a mix of honey-bashful, self-conscious of what he’s asking, and a streak of intrepid, unwilling yet to let his muster of courage fall to nothing, “Empirical evidence, if you will.”

Unwarranted guilt silts Hongjoong’s throat at the rejection he’s about to utter. 

“I’ll give you an hour.” 

**

Turns out he’s had it all wrong. Turns out he had it ass backwards. Turns out Seonghwa isn’t a sneering, conceited megalomaniac at all. 

He’s a little haughty, sure. His mother’s a CEO, his father a politician, he’s been raised with notions of grandiose and superiority from birth so he carries a self-assured, slightly imperious grace. But he contains these dapples of shyness that surface at oddly endearing places, like when he waves Hongjoong goodbye late, late that evening and says _see you next week, friend!_ as if the word ‘friend’ is a secret, a glorious one he isn’t sure he’s meant to possess but takes pleasure in all the same. He isn’t so much overbearing as he is smart and eloquent, and the sweetness he previously thought to be mawkish is just that, _sweetness,_ but his sense of humour is wickedly stupid, so, so stupid and so aligned with Hongjoong’s wavelength that a good portion of that afternoon is spent recovering from various laughter comas, after they overcome the initial stiffness. Who would have thought? 

The afternoon passes in pool laps and lazying and float talk and rummy and sweet tipsying drinks. There are the things they have in common—bands, fashion, literature, a hatred of any mint-chocolate mix—and their differences—football and judo, Arsenal F.C. and Tottenham Hotspur, the gym a sanctuary vs. a godless place, preferred genres of literature; romance vs. horror, despite Seonghwa’s claim that he absolutely cannot watch scary things, he can read them just fine. (“It’s a visual thing.”) They gap the differences well enough, and Seonghwa’s friends, when they arrive, while annoying as ever, seem less obnoxious, and by the time Hongjoong leaves, the word has settled. 

Friend. 

** 

“You haven’t taken a break today,” Seonghwa catches Hongjoong’s wrist as he passes by. 

Because it’s too damn hot to be out here, Hongjoong wants to finish as soon as possible and Seonghwa is insane for choosing to be when he could take refuge in the divinely cool, air-conditioned house. 

“I’m almost done,” he shakes himself free. 

“I’ll report to eomma.” He catches Hongjoong’s wrist again. 

“Snitch,” he scowls, prying free again.

“You can’t leave today without taking a break.” Seonghwa says sternly, crossing his arms.

“You just want me to laze about with you.” Hongjoong accuses, rolling his eyes.

“Yes, I do,” Seonghwa says easily, “so hurry up and come sit.” 

Hongjoong doesn’t know what to do with that, so he dives into the water to recheck the skimmer basket. Which was emptied and cleaned two hours ago. 

**

_Lord, sink me into perdition_ _now_. 

**

“Let’s go inside,” Hongjoong groans, flopping onto his front. The umbrella of the lounger blots out most of the sun’s glare but the scorching air can’t be helped. Hongjoong would do anything to plaster himself to the cool marble of literally any surface inside. 

“Don’t be weak,” Seonghwa mumbles from beneath an arm flung over his face, “it’s nice out here,” 

“If you’re a desert snake,” Hongjoong huffs and throws himself onto his back in a show of despair. 

“Or not weak,”

“I’m leaving you,” he flops again, onto his front and contemplates throwing himself into the pool if Seonghwa insists on staying out here.

“Already jagiya?” he whines, _whines_ , “But we were meant to last for _ever_ ,” 

“Jag- _jagiya_?” _what the fuck._

Whatever Seonghwa sees on his face has him bursting out in bellows. “Oh,” he says, “oh, I see.” 

“See what,” Hongjoong says, impartial, trying to think through the daze. 

Seonghwa smiles wide, innocuous, “Nothing.”

Menace. 

“Looks like you need more sunscreen,” Seonghwa says, a short while later, when Hongjoong’s about to finally drop off in a doze, “if I give you a massage,” he rises from his seat, “will you stop being a moaner?” 

“Do your worst and I’ll see.” 

So that’s how Hongjoong finds himself desperate for god to take him, to be removed from this merciless earth and be placed _any_ where else, even literal hell. 

Anything beats being straddled by Seonghwa ( _Are you good?_ Reply: noncommittal grunt), cold lotion lined down his back, thick long fingers spreading and kneading gently at his skin with consideration as if he’ll crumble like marzipan with anything rougher, over and over and over, filleting him softly. 

It’s hellish. Seonghwa’s crowned just at the base of his spine and the start of his rear, light enough to not be crushing, weighted enough to let Hongjoong feel the full brunt of how insubstantial both of their only clothing—beach shorts on the shorter end—are. 

Seonghwa’s speaking, regaling Hongjoong with the story of a fur coat or another he saw in a boutique the other day and saved for winter, and Hongjoong could scarcely relay the details if his life depended on it but he hums at what seem like appropriate intervals so Seonghwa doesn’t uncover how his brains are leaking from his ears with every ministration of his talented fingers. 

“I was thinking, I’m going to shave my head,”

“Hmm,”

“I’ll make a smoothie with the chopped locks.”

“Ooh,”

“I’ll save some for you,” 

“That’s nice,” 

“I heard it helps improve your focus,”

“Aha,”

“Maybe I’ll add a few snails,”

“Perfect,”

There’s laughter booming in Hongjoong’s eardrums as Seonghwa collapses over him, forcing a breathless grunt from him with the sudden increased weight. 

“Hongjoong,” Seonghwa wheezes, “you’re not listening to me.” 

“I was too,” he protests, trying to wiggle under Seonghwa but it’s useless. He’s completely pinned. 

“Then,” Seonghwa says, making no effort to move, face pressed to the side of Hongjoong’s neck, “what was the last thing I said?” 

Hongjoong thinks and thinks and thinks but all his synapses are burning and his mental faculties have been plundered. 

“Vinyls?” he hazards a guess, music always a safe bet. 

“Uh huh,” Seonghwa says, grasping Hongjoong’s shoulders and running his fingers down his sides with gentle pressure, “whose record?” 

“Coldp—“ instead a choked, horrifying sound cuts him off from an unknown source. Which, more horrifyingly, turns out to be his own mouth. 

Seonghwa’s fingers span over the crest of his chest and brushed accidentally over both nipples at once. The jolt it sends through him has Seonghwa almost bucking off his back, like a rider thrown off the saddle of an unruly horse, and neither of them seem to register exactly what happened for a bewildering, dead moment. 

“Hongjoong,” Seonghwa starts with mild mortification, rushing away, “I’m so—“

But Hongjoong’s had enough. He’s done. That’s it. He manoeuvres himself out from under Seonghwa, putting his sputtering figure on his back, pushing himself into the space between his legs. 

Done, he thinks, tipping up Seonghwa’s high boned, jewel cut face, done, he thinks, lowering his own, _done,_ pressing his mouth to Seonghwa’s apology streamed one, unrepentant, done with bearing Seonghwa half hard on top of him for a half hour, done with the buzz in every cartilage of his spine and ribs and somewhere inexplicably deeper, since the first time he set eyes on Park Seonghwa, done, done, done and ready for this. 

For the strawberry chapstick taste of Seonghwa’s mouth, for the full-bodied Syrah coating his tongue, for the way a surprised moan generates at the back of his throat and vibrates in them both, for the way he overcomes it in a heartbeat and tilts his head and slackens his mouth and spreads his legs and blooms in opening and embracement of Hongjoong. Sweet, silky skin, fermented in sun. Veraison. 

It’s nothing short of intoxicating to pull and push at other each other like this, hungry for a taste, desperate for a bite, on the verge of tearing one another apart. The lounger croaks and groans under their hasty, unruly sampling of each other but neither show concern. There’s a rising ring in Hongjoong’s ear that obliterates rationality as Seonghwa humps him between kisses, humps his thigh, his cock, his hip, anything within reach. 

“God,” Hongjoong groans, death awaiting impatiently on the other end of the sting Seonghwa’s teeth on his lower lip brings. 

_“Seonghwa,”_ Seonghwa pulls away momentarily to correct. 

“Shut up,” Hongjoong wants smacks him. He trades the energy for kissing him harder. 

“Waited so long,” Seonghwa gasps between kisses, fingers slipping past the seams of Hongjoong’s shorts, gripping him down by the back of his thighs, grinding him closer, “for this,”

“Could’ve been,” Hongjoong returns roughly, his own hands rooting in Seonghwa’s sun streaked hair, “long ago. If you weren’t. Such a. Pedantic asshole.” 

“You,” Seonghwa retaliates, nails burying in Hongjoong’s skin, lacing the pleasure of their rutting with tingles of pain, “were always. Glaring. Huffing. So. Scary,”

Irritated, Hongjoong sighs, pulls back. Frowns. “You’re beautiful.”

Seonghwa makes a broken sound. Arches up into Hongjoong’s hands. Winds a leg around his knees. Offering and offering and offering, finally, in a way that isn’t lost on either of them. “Touch me.” 

Hongjoong obliges, fingers wrapping around Seonghwa’s neck to anchor their searching mouths, another scraping down his gilded chest, pursuing the sharp taper of his waist, exploring and exploring the exact geometry that’s haunted his reluctant conscious, knowing subconscious, for weeks, not quite gentle as you’d treat something precious but rough with the ardour of something _wanted,_ needed, maddeningly desired. 

“More,” Seonghwa takes Hongjoong’s hand, guides it to the seams of his shorts.

“Let’s,” Hongjoong says, alight, mouthing at Seonghwa’s swan throat, “go inside,”

“I—“ Seonghwa breathes, shuddering, “I have stuff,” the words drag heavily from him and Hongjoong thinks he’s gone on arousal, until, until, until, “here, in the pool shed,” 

The earth stops on its axis. “The _shed?”_

“I— sometimes,” Seonghwa says, it comes out in a shaky gasp, “when no one’s here, I—“

“You fuck people out _here?”_

“Just,” he’s so flushed, ripe as peach in the cheeks, mouth swollen as a stained peach stone, eyes large glimmering pools of balsamic, “just by myself,” 

“Oh,” Hongjoong whispers, gutted. 

“Yeah,” Seonghwa whispers back, fingers clutching the edges of the lounger in white-knuckled grips, gaze pointed downwards. 

There’s something brittle in the air, a moment clutching its breath, the last of berry sugar transmuting. 

“You want to?” Hongjoong asks quietly, “Now?” 

Seonghwa’s breath audibly unhooks. He shudders as Hongjoong’s fingers disappear up his shorts, carefully, like he’s mindful of spooking something wild, something defenceless.

“If,” Seonghwa exhales, “if you’re okay with it,” 

“No one will walk in?” 

“Noona’s spending the week at Minseo’s, eomma and appa away for business,” 

“We don’t have to,” Seonghwa says, when the silence stretches, “we can go inside,”

But Hongjoong’s mind is made. “Go get the stuff.” 

**

“Like this?” Hongjoong asks, sitting on Seonghwa’s thighs, stroking his cock with lube, “you let your neighbours see you like this?”

“N-no,” Seonghwa says quickly, thighs tensing, “no one sees,”

It could be true. The Park Residence is walled in by thick, imposing foliage, roofs of neighbouring houses barely visible over the top. But in the aligned break of the copse, in the case of a well statured person, it’s also not completely impossible to be spied on. 

And for all his negative answers, Seonghwa’s body speaks a different language, throbs in Hongjoong’s grasp and Hongjoong knows he’s hitting a sweet, sweet mark. 

“Do you think about it? Think about one of them seeing and paying the lovely, pretty Park boy a visit?” 

_“Hongjoong,”_ Seonghwa shakes, voice thin.

“Just think, nothing else,”

“Sometimes,” he confesses, holding Hongjoong’s gaze even as he trembles. Hongjoong is drunk his weight in mulled-desire, sloshing with gasoline. 

“Tell me,” he soothes a thumb over Seonghwa’s mouth, slick with a mixture of lube and precum, a foul shine to remnants of scented chapstick. Hongjoong must be rotten sick to the core, utterly decayed, how it makes him more ravenous to watch Seonghwa lick the unorthodox lip balm off himself. 

“There’s—there’s Mr. Kim,” Seonghwa swallows, “across the street,”

“Silver fox with all the muscles?”

“Yea-yeah,”

Hongjoong hums sympathetically. “What’s he do to such a pretty boy like you?”

Hongjoong is nowhere near Seonghwa’s throat, one hand Seonghwa’s cock, the other just as wet as it prods into his own rear, but Seonghwa struggles to open his mouth and speak all the same, miserable, strangled sounds come from his throat, before at last he coughs out, “Takes me, right here. In the pool sometimes, on the steps. On the ground.” 

“It’s never enough,” Hongjoong comments, continuing in that sympathetic soothing tone, now laced with something bigger, unkind. Pity. 

Seonghwa makes no reply, only flushes deeper, painted in cocktails of shame and embarrassment while his cock grows impossibly in Hongjoong’s adept hand. 

“You and me,” Hongjoong offers a slow secretive smile, “we can give them a taste,” he lets go of Seonghwa’s cock, the weight and stiffness of it make it bob and slap between Seonghwa’s relatively defined stomach and Hongjoong’s soft pudge, “give all those eyes something to see, can’t we?” 

“Y-yes,”

“So generous,” he compliments, patting Seonghwa’s hair with his dirty hand. Seonghwa leans in, cat-like. 

There’s a small protest when Hongjoong pulls back and turns himself around 180, facing the house, but it quiets down as he settles back on Seonghwa’s thighs, as if he means to lounge in Seonghwa’s lap and soak up the sun. 

He glances over his shoulder and nods lazily, “Go on,” 

Seonghwa is only stationary for a puzzled second. And when he realizes, when he figures—Hongjoong’s grabbed by the hipbones, raised just enough for the swollen head, and then he’s being pushed down onto Seonghwa’s cock until he’s seated completely and almost groaning with the fullness of it. 

Seonghwa drives in slowly, fucking into Hongjoong with gradual ease as the resistance lessens and lessens but that’s not what they’re here to do. It’s not what Hongjoong intends at all. He extracts Seonghwa’s fingers off his hips one by one and leans forward onto his palms. The position curves Seonghwa’s cock inside him and Hongjoong blanches, showers of pain and pleasure shooting up his spine. Taking a moment to breathe in deeply, he disregards his body’s warnings. He knows himself. 

He cranes his neck around his forearm, catching sight of a stricken Seonghwa, fixated on the lewd display Hongjoong has bestowed on him. Hongjoong knows what he looks like, split open on Seonghwa, stuffed wet and full and pried apart for anyone to see. Smiling, he faces forward again and braces his arms and calves. 

Hard and fast, he brings himself down again and again, leaving no room for breath, no space for pause. A sick sopping sound infuses with the murmur of the pool, rendered sicker by the brutal slap of skin on skin, muscle slamming on muscle, bruising, possessed. 

It’s too hot to be fucking like this, too hot to even be touching, but Hongjoong chases it, the heat, the sting, the sweat-slick stuffiness. He’ll immolate himself here, make something holy of himself at last. 

“Seonghwa-yah,” he gasps as he bounces himself, “what do you think? Are they enjoying the show?”

Hongjoong doesn’t give a fuck about Mr.Kim or other neighbours or anyone else. The only thing that concerns him is that Seonghwa is wholly, bodily affected by the notion, the only music he revels in the sugary bitten off sounds Seonghwa makes, pulsing inside him at the mention of invasion, not voyeurs witnessing him fucked but fucking to stupid with his catatonia-inducing large cock. 

“Would they pay to see this?” 

Seonghwa chokes like he’s _dying._

“I would pay,” he rambles, gone and lost on the way Seonghwa’s so tight and snug inside him, how he reaches all the way to the right spot with the barest of lifts, “I’d pay to see this,” 

And he is, kinda. Seeing, that is. Their reflection in the patio doors, clear as a picture, inapposite, profane. There’s him hunched down like a hackled up animal, working to take _take take,_ there’s Seonghwa hunched over him, hands roaming, mouth ducking again and again to feed from the heat of his undulating spine, nape of his neck, flower kisses pressed to the crown of his dark head like secret confessions. 

The closer Hongjoong gets to peak, the more the picture in the reflection starts to oscillate, like a mirage, the phantom of summer. But it’s real, it’s solid, it’s mind bending when, match, spark, ignite, Seonghwa picks him up, pulls him back to his hot chest, and sounding drunk himself, murmurs wetly against Hongjoong’s neck, “Come for me, jagiya,” 

Hongjoong doesn’t need to be touched. He spills at once on the white leather of the lounger and on his stomach and across his own thighs and Seonghwa’s. Seonghwa, triggered by Hongjoong’s tightening, follows suit and for a moment they become intertwined as they possibly could, curled over together in pleasure, panting and dizzied. 

“Fuck,” Hongjoong groans when Seonghwa straightens off him and he slips out. There’s fluid leaking out of him, the gross slickness running down his perineum and the backs of his thighs, splashing onto the crease behind his knees, mixing in with the sweat dripping off the reddened skin. 

“Easy,” Seonghwa says, slowly tugging Hongjoong back with him as he lies down. 

Hongjoong should despise it, he hates sticking around after sex with anyone he’s not committed to. He gets attached so easily and it all gets too messy. It, maybe, says something that he’s not collecting his clothes off the ground, half way to his van. Even more that he lets Seonghwa cradle him to his chest, butt naked and sex soaked still, in the pinnacle of summer, where anyone can see. 

“‘Jagiya’?” Hongjoong says, a little hoarse, when their breathing has evened. 

Seonghwa’s voice is a cross of bashful and pleased, “Told you I saw.” 

Hongjoong gathers the skin of Seonghwa’s wrist between his fingers but doesn’t pinch, “What exactly did you see.”

“That,” Seonghwa scoops up some of the mess on Hongjoong’s stomach, “it would do this.” 

“I believe it was your dick that did that,” Hongjoong counters in a low huff.

“Hongjoong,” Seonghwa says, incredulous, “you just got me off to thought of the entire neighbourhood watching me. I promise seeing stars at being called endearments is nothing.”

“You have a _kink._ This with me was _one_ time.” Because Seonghwa is the first to say that to him during sex. 

“Sure,” Seonghwa’s lips brush Hongjoong’s forehead, fingers languidly strumming the soil-safe stretch of his chest, “if you say so, jagiya,”

Can Seonghwa feel Hongjoong’s traitor heart jump in his chest? God, he fucking hopes not. It’s embarrassing enough that he’s already got the most inane ideas in his head, like kissing Seonghwa’s pretty mouth again and again, nothing heated or deep, just the sluggish intimacy of touching lips. More inane, staying like this, but with clean bodies, all their clothes on. The most inane, a summer full of this; hot skin, dizzying rapture, wined breaths, sweets lips, closed palms, twined fingers, _jagiya._

Repetition, the jewel of the mundane. To trust today will come again tomorrow. Hongjoong _wants._

“I hate to break this up,” Seonghwa says, sometime when the sky is cooler and Hongjoong is once again almost stolen by slumber. “But can we go get clean? I feel like peeling off my skin.” 

“That another kink?”

“Ha ha,” Seonghwa deadpans. “You got me there.”

“Fine,” Hongjoong laughs, lifting himself up from Seonghwa, “I can’t promise we’ll have witnesses but we can continue this in the shower.” 

**Author's Note:**

> 🍷title half from hozier, cherry wine, half mine.  
> 🍷i hope your new year has started off on a good note. may you and your loved ones be safe!  
> 🍷thank you for reading!
> 
> you can find me at [twitter](https://twitter.com/hwatothestars) or [curious cat](https://curiouscat.me/hwatothestars)


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